


Technically Not A Matricide

by fleece



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Abuse, F/F, F/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleece/pseuds/fleece
Summary: Nepeta kills Vriska's mom.
Relationships: Nepeta Leijon/Equius Zahhak, Nepeta Leijon/Terezi Pyrope, Nepeta Leijon/Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket, Nepeta Leijon/Vriska Serket
Comments: 36
Kudos: 35





	1. A Non-Violent Chapter But For The Animal Death

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags! There's detailed descriptions of gore, injuries, and spider anatomy (I know), and some mentions of drug abuse.

You don’t feel like you have to be embarrassed by the fact that when you first met Terezi it was with one of her nooses around your neck. After all, you still knocked her on her ass!

You think the embarrassing part is that you didn’t recognize it as a weapon and freely stuck your head into the loop. Curiosity killed the cat and then the troll did break its back.

All of her other traps were easy to suss out. You’re a hunter, after all. She covered the pitfalls with leaves and dirt but didn’t settle the layers properly, and the deadfalls were just too obvious. Those would only work on beasts and lusii. You’d considered using them around your hive, but your claws were too much fun! You liked the action.

Luckily you managed to wedge your hands into the loop before it closed entirely. Unluckily you were still dangling several feet in the air completely incapacitated. Diplomacy was the best option in this situation.

“I’m sorry I kicked you,” you said. “I hope it didn’t hurt too much! Could you get me down? I won’t kill you.”

“But I might kill you, intruder!” This threat would probably have meant more to you if it wasn’t muffled by a mouthful of dirt. Her face was blooming teal on one side; you got her good.

“You can try,” you said. “But it’ll leave you disabled, and then your traps can’t save you from all the enemies to come.”

She spat.

“I’ll share my kill with you?”

She looked at you consideringly, one eye swelling shut.

After she cut you down, not gently, you thanked her and then bounded on all fours to your felled antlerbeast a few hundred meters away. She caught up in a short time. By then you’d finished taking the guts out and were working on propping it up to facilitate blood drainage.

“That’s what you want to share?” she said, her snickering at your gait ramping up to a shriek.

You tilted your head like Mom did whenever she pretended to not understand, only you really didn’t understand. “Yes?” You looked at the carcass. “It’s properly dressed, it won’t poison you or anything.”

The tealblood’s eyes aim everywhere but the carcass. “What’s wrong with grubloaf?”

“I don’t get regular delivery drones,” you say slowly, ready to drop into a crouch.

Her look becomes alert. “Interesting,” she says.

You sniffed. Mom was nearby, so you kept talking. “What I thought was interesting was that big white egg,” you said.

Her legs bent a little and her fingers flexed. “Oh?” she says, tone still casual.

“It is interesting,” you repeat, “that we are both mysterious trolls in a forest. Purrsibly each with secrets.” You lick at your fingertips, cleaning off some of the blood.

She laughs. “I wouldn’t want to pry! Now that our threats are over, perhaps we can become acquainted.”

“Purrhaps,” you correct her, but smile. “I’m Nepeta Leijon.”

“Terezi Pyrope.”

You were friends, after that, always playing and laughing and messy with forest duff. 

Terezi always tried her best to keep you from FLARPing, that is, Vriska Serket. You never told her about the disastrous log you had from when you tried to roleplay with her. It was mistimed, after one of the first feedings.  


AG: if you don't flarp you're a stupid loser!!! what's the POINT if you're not going to destroy anything  
AC: *ac licks her paw and cleans the side of her face* well, isn't a story good too?  
AG: how's THIS for a story!  
AG: ag takes her sword of power and kills ac! and then she skins her! and wears her as a cape!!!!!!!!

You flinched from your tablet, but remembered you’re a brave kitty and that you squished spiders all the time.

AC: :33 < *ac's flayed flesh body rises from the ground and shambles over to the dread pirate*  
AC: :33 < *and takes her skin back! it keeps her insides wet!*  
AG: you're dead, st8pid!  
AC: :33 < no i'm a zombie that's different!  
AG: i mean that you're DEAD because i'm going to KILL Y8U

You grimaced and closed the window. At that point you were even honestly still a little scared of Equius, who demonstrated from the start that he would always be careful with you, so this hostility—well, why bother if it's not fun?

Sweeps come and go. Terezi is less fun, now, but you’re growing up. You worry about her a lot. You’re also spending less time together—Equius needs reining in, always, and Terezi is always studying or roleplaying, mostly with Vriska. Your ring of friends is a little harbor against the standard murder count of planet-bound trolls, but Vriska’s FLARPing is probably single-handedly making up for that. Personally you’ve killed a troll or two or ten; the forest is dangerous. But she’s held to a different standard than you are.

It certainly doesn’t help that a couple of your friends are obsessed with her and your moirail lives on the next cliffside over.

GA: Vriska Once Again Chastised Me For Meddling In Her Business, As She Calls It  
GA: But I Can’t Help But Be Concerned Over Her Behavior  
GA: While At The Same Time I Wish For Her To Let Me In Rather Than Push Me Away  
AC: :33 > doesn’t she have a point?  
AC: :33 > you could court her, if you’re worrying over everything she does anyway  
GA: Excuse Me I Guess I Forgot Who I Was Talking To For A Second There  
GA: I Suppose Any Advice You Have Would Tend Towards Ships  
AC: :33 > it’s sort of a shipping tending conversation, don’t you think?  
GA: In Hindsight It Indeed Is  
GA: Only I Do Not Wish To Be Shipped With Her  
AC: ;33 > i think you do  
AC: :33 > i just thought of the wrong quadrant didn’t i  
GA: Goodness The Moons Are Coming Over The Horizon  
GA: I Did Not Realize How Late It Was Getting  
GA: I Ought To Be Getting To Sleep Soon  
GA: And You Are Up Quite Early Now That I Think About It  
AC: :33 > i like to check my tablet before i go hunt!  
AC: :33 > and you are purrfectly transparent miss maryam  
GA: I Am Completely Opaque In Every Aspect  
GA: Unless Of Course My Outfit Is Incorporating Some Mesh Or Tulle Or Organza  
AC: :33 > :33c

GC: SH3’S B3G1NN1NG TO GO TOO F4R  
GC: 1 UND3RST4ND TH4T H3R LUSUS 1S D3M4ND1NG BUT  
GC: SOM3 TROLLS 1 4M F33L1NG H3S1T4NT OV3R S3NT3NC1NG  
GC: 4ND 1 4M NOT SUPPOS3D TO B3 1N 4NY W4Y GU1LTY 1N 4NY SC3N4R1O  
GC: FL4RP OR NOT  
AC: :33 > hesitant? that’s weird for you  
AC: :33 > though you don’t know know what it’s like to have a lusus really  
AC: :33 > sorry that sounded mean  
AC: :33 > i just meant that even my mom can be hard to take care of and i don’t have to kill anyone to feed her  
AC: :33 > though if she needed me to i would  
AC: :33 > because she is the cutest and fluffiest and best lusus there is on the planet  
GC: NO, YOU’R3 R1GHT.  
GC: 4ND 4DORABL3.  
GC: WHY D1D YOU APOLOG1ZE?  
AC: :33 > no reason whatsoefur!

CT: D--> My f00lish neighbor’s cacophany reigns over the mountains once more  
CT: D--> She has taken to shouting her latest FLARP plans out of her windows in my hive’s direction  
CT: D--> As if I have any interest in a game for rubes and rusts  
CT: D--> And such b00rishness would be inexcusable even if I were  
AC: :33 > that sounds pretty annoying  
CT: D--> Especially as she keeps detailing every aspect of her clouding strategy  
CT: D--> It involves a lot of underhandedness  
AC: :33 > i should probably warn tafuros about that then!

It doesn’t do any good. 


	2. Injury

You contact Equius after you’re unable to get a hold of anyone else after a few nights. Equius tells you that there were spirits on the wind a couple of nights ago, which is unusual for the season, and that they were going upcanyon, rather than following their normal path like water flowing downhill. Eridan, when you message him, dismissively mentions only what you already know, that there was a big FLARP match planned, but it wasn’t supposed to be an extensive campaign. After that, he starts ranting about how pale romance is worthless so you just block him.

You try to troll Aradia again but she’s not online. Tavros isn’t, Sollux isn’t. Vriska. Terezi.

Terezi’s hive is the closest to your cave, and if it’s serious enough that half your friends aren’t online when you’re all kind of permanently online, you don’t feel good about not going to check on her at least. And she might be able to tell you if anything’s happened to everyone else.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back, Mom,” you say to your lusus, who is faking sleep. One of her ears flickers, but she does not otherwise acknowledge you. She knows you can take care of yourself.

You squeeze through the narrow cave entrance and emerge on the rocky hillside your hive is built into. It’s early, still bright and warm. The woodland is shifting beautifully in an early evening breeze, grasses and treetops swaying. You can see the pink and purple of Terezi’s forest in the distance. After skidding uncontrollably halfway down the hill path, you rein in your anxiety and start making your way there.

It’s a long walk. You feel worse and worse as you get closer, a bad feeling coiling in your gut. You start trotting when you enter the forest, and ramp up into a run when you’re maybe a kilometer out.

You find Terezi collapsed at the base of the tree her hive sits in. Two surface roots cradle her. The way she’s huddled looks wrong and she looks smaller than usual. You dash over and then reel back in horror. She smells rank; there’s a puddle of vomit near her and all of her exposed skin is white with fresh burns. They look ruched in texture and they’re all wet with discharge. Her face is a mess of solidifying teal.

“Terezi?” you whisper. You can’t tell if she’s dead.

Please let her not be dead, you think.

You touch her shoulder tentatively and she jerks. Her eyes open, only they aren’t her eyes, they’re red pitted orbs, and she begins to scream.

“Terezi!” you hiss, scared. “Terezi, please be quiet. I have to get you up into the tree before it’s safe, I’m sorry, please shut up.”

Her scream becomes a cackle. She can barely move, but slowly sits up.

“Nepeta?” she says. Before you can say yes, Terezi answers herself. “It must be you. I can hear how you breathe. I’ve always known it, only I didn’t know I did. And I can recognize the colors of your horns. They smell sweet.”

“You’re blind,” you say. Surprised at yourself, you’re grateful she’s closed her eyelids again. Normally injury doesn’t phase you, but it’s Terezi, after all. “What happened?”

“Here’s how to disable the traps,” she says instead.

Normally to get into Terezi’s hive you follow her heels and jump from hidden handhold to handhold shallowly cut into the trunk, but she has a rope system for packages. After you’ve cleared out the traps, you gingerly pick her up and set her in the netting, then climb in after her and start hauling it upwards. She’s crying, the quiet sobs heaving her body. You say nonsense to her, knowing it probably won’t help, wishing it would.

Once you’re well into the branches you tie off the rope and jump out of the netting. You scoop Terezi up and climb into the hive as smoothly as you can without jostling her.

“Can you walk or stand at all, Terezi?” you ask. She starts to shake her head and then makes a pained noise. “I had to crawl out of the sun because everything hurt so bad,” she says. She was out in the sun? For how long? No wonder her injuries are so bad. “I think it’s best if you just dump me in sopor.”

“Okay,” you say, and navigate to her respiteblock.

“Should I take off your clothes?” you say, anxious, and she giggles.

“Under other circumstances that would be fun,” she says, and you blush. “But I think it’ll hurt less if you just dump me into my coon.” You do so, and the slime eats her up with a gulping noise. She resurfaces and says, “There’s a painkiller dial on the back and I’d love if you could turn that up for me.”

You fumble around behind the coon for a bit and find it. It clicks up in notches.

“I can hear the level,” Terezi tells you. “That’ll probably be good, I never use them. I’m going to pass out now,” she says, and then sinks down beneath the rim of the recuperacoon.

You pace and jump around for a few minutes after that. You don’t know what to do. If only you could talk to Equius! He’s always been able to calm you when you’re upset, and right now you’re so overwhelmed you’re shaking. But you didn’t bring your tablet and you don’t know any of Terezi’s passwords. You look to the top of Terezi’s head in coon for reassurance—Terezi who can outsmart anyone, tongue sharper than her teeth—but even the part in her hair is boiled white and you have to fight to control your tears instead.

What can you do? You’re helpful! You can be helpful. Terezi will be safe in her hive if you rearm her traps. You head out to get her some fat and protein while it’s still nighttime.

Hunting has always cleared your mind. The blur of a chase, the power of your life over another. As you haul an antlerbeast up with the ropes, medical herbs in your pockets, your resolve coalesces.

You butcher the animal out on the landing slats so you don’t make a mess out of Terezi’s hive. You’ve never cooked meat for yourself, but the times you’ve brought kills to Equius he always cooked them while you watched. Thinking fondly of the times when you would sit on his countertops, kicking your legs as he shuffled pans around, you rummage in Terezi’s food preparation block and get ready to cook. The results taste bad to you, but Equius’s always did too even when he enjoyed it, and Terezi will need the protein in any case.

It’s squarely day now, but Terezi sleeps on. You stick a hand in the sopor and lightly touch her collar; it’s still rising and falling. She’s still alive. You feel a little better.

You eventually fall asleep leaning against her recuperacoon, mediculling kit and a mountain of bandages in your lap. You wake when a big dollop of sopor drops onto your face.

“I didn’t know you’d still be here,” Terezi says. “The hive smells good! Did you cook for me?” Her tone is too airy, as if she isn’t still near-mortally injured.

“I did,” you say, after hissing and spitting the slime out of your mouth. “Let’s get you in the ablution trap so we can take care of the burns.”

“You’ll get slime all over you,” she warns, but you hiss again and she offers no more protests when you pull her up and into your arms.

You both cry when you rinse off the sopor; Terezi out of pain and you out of sympathy. It’s awkward, pulling her clothes off and applying salve on most of her body. Terezi’s smaller and skinnier than you, and it makes you feel afraid of breaking her. The two of you are silent as you wind strips of gauze around her head and limbs and chest.

“This is good meat,” Terezi says, a while later, chewing thoughtfully on your cooking.

“Who did it?” you ask.

She freezes. It was already obvious, though.

“I’ll keep you away from her, if you can’t do it yourself,” you say. “If anyone knows your weaknesses it’s me.”

“That’s forward,” Terezi says after a few seconds. “And I am not weak.”

“You don’t have to pretend,” you say. “You’re the one who said you knew how I breathed.”

Terezi tries to facepalm out of embarrassment but luckily you’re quick enough to guide her hand away before she hurts herself or musses the bandages.

“I never said anything like that. Give me a break, I nearly died,” she says instead.

“Okay,” you say, “but only because you’re so dear to me.”

You kiss one of her horns, the only part of her not affected too badly by the sun. She smiles for a second, and then tells you what happened.


	3. Idea

Vriska messages you a couple of weeks later.

AG: i heard you cozied up red with someone  
AG: how far she’s fallen!!!!!!!!  
AC: :33 > better red with me than dead with you  
AC: :33 > what did you ever give her?  
AG: y8u st8le her from me and i w8nt ever f8rgive y8u!!!!!!!!  
AC: :33 > you tried to kill her! or did you forget already  
AG: she deserved 8t  
AC: :33 > maybe you deserve that

It probably would be better if Vriska was dead. Terezi’s alive, but though her burns are healing she’ll never get her eyes back. Aradia’s alive, but it was a near miss. Sollux isn’t a killer, but he’s going to have nightmares for the rest of his life, and you know he’s going to blame himself for what almost happened. Tavros is alive, but…

AC: :33 > he had to use almost all of his stipend on a four wheel device, and even with it he says it’s really hard to navigate  
AC: :33 > so some of us were thinking maybe you could make him a really cool pair of robot legs!  
CT: D--> Nepeta  
CT: D--> You do realize that replacing his current legs with robot legs would require  
CT: D--> Amputation  
CT: D--> And that there is a severe risk of infection and possibly rejection of the electromechanic connections that would be required for them to function properly  
CT: D--> In addition, they would have to be replaced after his next molt  
CT: D--> I anticipate the arm I made for Vriska will not last very long in that respect  
AC: :33 > !!!  
AC: :33 > you made an arm for vriskers?  
CT: D--> Oh  
CT: D--> Fiddlesticks  
AC: :33 > you didn’t tell me!  
AC: :33 > i am not going to say you have to tell me everything but that seems kind of impurrtant!  
AC: :33 > you KNOW what she did to half of our friends!  
CT: D--> Yes  
CT: D--> But  
CT: D--> Though it pains me to say this, as she sullies her own blood with her conduct, let alone every blue by association, and is tempestuous in the extreme, I am yet also  
CT: D--> Friends  
CT: D--> With her  
CT: D--> Though it is hard to admit in such plain language  
AC: :33 > :OO  
AC: :33 > equihiss!  
CT: D---> And consider, Nepeta, not every troll is as lucky to have a lusus like yours or mine  
CT: D---> Your mother might be of ill-refined blood and fickle in nature but she ultimately cares for you  
CT: D---> And makes little demand  
AC: :33 > yes i know  
AC: :33 > i was telling terezi that last season before everything happened  
AC: :33 > i know it’s unfair she has to do all that for her lusus and i don’t for Mom  
AC: :33 > but it’s unfair that you made her an arm before you even considered doing anything for tafuros!  
AC: :33 > he is also your friend no matter how low his blood is  
AC: :33 > and even if he wasn’t i’m still asking because he is my furiend too!  
CT: D---> I apologize, Nepeta  
CT: D---> I will have to think on some less medically fraught solution

Equius makes full-leg robotic support sleeves for Tavros’s legs that greatly improve his mobility. Terezi’s recovery stutters along while her smelling skill improves with every breath. Aradia rebuilds her hive.

Some sweeps pass.

GA: Sorry I Had To Switch Windows For A While  
AC: :33 > her again?  
GA: Yes  
GA: She Is Growing Increasingly Hungry For Attention  
GA: Using The Word Hungry To Allude To Her Ever-Looming Mother  
GA: Though My Own Has Passed I Think Of Her Often And Fondly  
GA: I Suspect Vriska Would Not Harbor Similar Feelings Towards Her Lusus  
AC: :33 > i bet she’s not even sorry for what she did  
GA: I Don’t Know If She Is Capable Of Regret  
GA: In The Way That We Think Of It Anyway  
AC: :33 > i feel kind of bad for her  
GA: !  
AC: :33 > eep!

Vriska herself even messages you from time to time.

AG: what’s it like to have a lusus  
AC: :33 > you have a lusus! look at what you’ve done for her  
AG: i wouldn’t have done differently even if i wanted to have  
AC: :33 > that doesn’t make any sense  
AG: and i meant a real 8ne!  
AG: she’ll kill me s88n.  
AG: i can feel it coming  
AG: i won’t be able to satisfy her and then B8M!  
AG: no more vriska!  
AC: :33 > why are you telling me this?  
AG: i don’t know!  
AG: you have l8ke, a normal life  
AG: i just want to know what its like, i guess

You’re not sure if the tangle inside your chest is pity.

AC: :33 > vriskers seems to be under a lot of pressure lately  
CT: D--> Indeed  
CT: D-→ She is ever more erratic and volatile  
CT: D-→ And though the feedings are regular as they ever were the lusus seems to be demanding yet more kills  
AC: :33 > if the lusus is the problem i don’t understand why doesn’t she just doesn’t feed her  
AC: :33 > well i get it but  
AC: :33 > someone should take care of that  
CT: D-→ That would only be f00l for her to kill whoever t00k that upon themselves, I think  
AC: :33 > fool?  
CT: D-→ Apologies, fuel  
AC: :33 > ah!

It’s an idea.

You could kill the lusus. Any retaliation you could probably handle. Without her lusus Vriska would have no excuses anymore; she’d be forced to be her own person.

The more you think about it the more convinced you feel. You were always able to help Equius out and you stopped Terezi when she really needed to, even if you were late about it. What’s stopping you from stopping Vriska?

You don’t have much experience in plotting; your roleplays are mostly silly. It’s just playtime. This is serious! And it’s not just shipping. Well, does it count as shipping if you’re part of the ship? Sailing? You don’t know anything about boats, to be honest.

Terezi is howling as you say all this out loud to her.

“What ship is so complicated?” she says.

“I don’t know!” you say defensively, which is not a great tack with someone who likes to play interrogarroter. It would’ve been better if you just picked something from a book!

She goes easy on you, luckily. “Perhaps a dromon? Oooh, a quinquereme!”

Terezi may have FLARPed, and know how to fight, but you’re a hunter. You’ve killed beasts, trolls, lusii. She still glows a fragile teal when she smells your strips of jerky along with your mediculling herbs hanging from the roof of your cave.

So you don’t tell her your plan, just that you have one, and that it will work. Well, honestly, you don’t even tell her you have a plan. And you don’t really have a plan.

“Equius has been restless lately,” you say instead. “I think it’s time for an in-person date.”

Terezi aims her nose towards you. Her glasses glint like in the Troll Anime you’ve been watching together on her husktop.

“That sounds like a good idea, Miss Oleaceous-green,” she says. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you anything?”

“You don’t,” you say, and kiss her horn.


	4. Pale

Your mom yawns you off back at the cave, so you pick up a pack and your claws and head out.

It’s a night of pure green, Madam Bubblegum Pink sleeping this evening. All of the woodland’s shadows flicker as you dart among them. You pull yourself up roots dangling over sheer embankments and stride along the tree trunks fallen from old storms. From the side of your pack your shoes dangle and bump against your back. Your calluses are confident, your steps sure. Leaf litter barely crackles under your feet.

Though you prefer portraiture, you can always admire a pretty landscape. After the fire a sweep back many old groves lost their canopies and became open to the light of all celestial bodies. The clearing you’re in boasts many different colors of grasses, all mellow under the green moon. Many are blooming with plumes commanding enough for even Kanaya’s hats. Blackened crags criss-cross over delicate forbs emerging under their watch.

You dangle your legs off of the very top of a snag and eat the grubloaf Terezi pressed into your claws before you left. Something in you feels more brazen, you guess. Normally you’d never perch so high, obvious prey for gryphons and falcoenixes. You’re roleplaying again, you think with a giggle, imitating a real predator.

Thinking about it a little more, you know you are a real predator. Your next kill will be the most dangerous prey yet.

At Equius’s hive, you knock and the reaction comes as expected. He is of course any number of horrified emotions that you visited him at all let alone with no luggage, no escort, and, critically, no invitation.

"Or notice," he continues scolding, as you dart past him into his hive. "If you must be so-" you’re scowling at Aurthour, "aggressively wanton, you should at least tell me so I can preserve some measure of propriety."

"So nice of you to give purrmission," you laugh. "I can try and text you before I knock next time!" 

Equius sputters.

“I’ll be staying for a few days,” you say, swinging your pack off of your shoulders and next to the door. “If I could suffer from more of your kindness.”

Equius’s face softens. He still wears his silly glasses, but you don’t need to see his eyes to tell. It’s in the left corner of his mouth and a shift in the bridge of his nose. You know every centimeter of his face. He knows every centimeter of your face, and ends up smiling to match yours. After so many sweeps you’re still besotted.

“A few days,” he says, now frowning for a joke. “And what would you be up to?”

You suck in your lips, which makes him frown for real.

“I’ll have to tell you,” you say, feeling some trepidation. Whenever you’ve visited before all you’ve done is watch movies together and applaud his robot fighting and go for romantic cliffside walks. You expect some resistance to your present aim.

“Will the telling be today?” he asks, fiddling with one leg of his glasses.

“Day before I leave, I think,” you say. You don’t want him to worry overmuch about it. You can’t say it’s not serious, so.

Equius comes over and scoops you up in his arms. You giggle and squirm out of his grip and pick him up in turn. “I was thinking,” he says, mock frown back, “that we could entertain ourselves until that time, then.” You hear “I trust you” in his voice.

You spend a few nights lolling around in his grand hive. Equius begs you not to go after any mountain goats this time, “cousins as they are to the noble musclebeast.” You’re not sure that’s true, but you like to roleplay animals, not study their taxonomy. Instead you do some workouts with him. You toss robot torsos to each other while squatting and do chin ups in the doorways. You pick out movies: one night you opt for an all-quadrant romcom after which he pleads, unnecessarily, for you to bear with a heavily redacted documentary about drone manufacturing. You eat grubloaf. His is better graded than Terezi’s, and indigo-quality butter is sublime. Equius insists on doing the dishes. You always just lick them.

At the edge of one morning you decide it’s time. The both of you are growing sleepy, and Equius has been eying you concernedly all night, picking at his cuticles and blinking too much behind his glasses. You pull him into his pile and the two of you get comfy.

“So...you know your neighbor?” you say after you patter of some inanities, immediately regretting it.

“I know of her,” he says gently, patting your shoulder until you flap your embarrassment out of your hands.

“I’m gonna kill her lusus,” you blurt.

Equius’s breath hitches.

“This would be my fault,” he says, after a while.

“What?” you say.

“I have not adequately guided you,” he says.

You tilt your head. “Of course you have, silly! And I don’t need all your guidance. I can do this. I can help her.”

He sniffs. It sounds wet.

“This doesn’t change anything I feel about you,” you say quickly. You have a claw tucked behind Equius’s ear along with a strand of hair you saw was falling into his eye. You keep your hand by his face, your knuckle cold from touching him. “Soldered white.”

“That is not an appropriate way to refer to our relationship,” Equius says immediately. You don’t feel any sweat roll onto your finger, though, so obviously it’s fine.

“Did you like my joke?”

“Yes,” he admits. “Solder is a low-melting alloy used to create a permanent bond between two less fusible metals. In this case, we are the metals, Nepeta.”

You swat at him. “I know, silly. I made the analogy!”

“I am not truly worried about our bond,” he says, hesitant. He has his eyes squeezed shut- he hasn’t done that in a pile for quite some time now. It used to mean he was lying. Now, you’re not sure.

“What are you worried about then?” you ask, tracing each hair of his eyelashes with your clawtip.

He blushes, which is always fucking adorable.

“A lowly olive, in quadrants with three blues- such deportment some may find sinister, base.”

“Terezi’s a little greenish,” you tease.

Equius is still tense, you can tell. You massage the furrows in his brow with your knuckle. “It is my whole duty as a blueblood to protect you from others- though, I know I have already failed, since you are with Terezi. In any case, it is not merely Serket’s blood, but rather her- her-”

“Everything?” you say.

“Her incredible aggression and disregard for the natural order,” he manages, looking at you again. He nudges his hand to where your forearm rests near his face and puts the pad of his finger on your elbow. He hasn’t needed to be so careful in sweeps.

“Do you think I’ve ever had respect for the natural order?” you say, scrunching up your face. “I’m still a good match for you.”

Equius sighs. He puts his whole palm on your cheek. It’s wet, which is gross. You curl your hand over his.

“I can only say it is inopportune,” he whispers. “Of course I am lucky to be watched over by you. I wish to always return your affections. I want to say it is a deliberate putting of yourself in the way of danger, but I know you will only take that as a challenge.”

You give his hand a squeeze. He probably barely feels it, but you hear a low rumble in his chest start up.

“I’ll leave tomorrow,” you say.

He presses his forehead to yours. You bite his nose and he can’t help but smile.

“I will have you rest well tonight, then,” he says, getting to his feet, and picking you up to put you to coon.

-

Equius always insists you scrape off the sopor when you wake, and you now just consider it a tax for the luxury of dampened sleep. You always wished you could coon together, but because of the gap in your blood colors, his sopor is a shade too cold for you. Instead you make do with sleeping in his guest coon and going over to his to climb to its rim and press a kiss to the part in his hair. He doesn’t wake. It’s still early enough the sky is reddish, from your quick peek out a window.

After you scrape and dress you ransack Equius’s kitchen for the jerky you always give him as gifts and that he never eats. The salt in the meat floods your mouth with saliva; you savor the product of your hard work. Though Equius has a lot of food you can’t make heads or tails of, you manage a midblood-grade pack of noodles you’ve had at Terezi’s before.

You’re going to need the carbohydrates.

As the sun takes its time setting, you stretch. You grab the soles of your feet, swing your arms to wake your shoulders. Your insides feel like an anthill. Normally hunts are fun but pretty mundane with how often you need to harvest food. This is more exciting. You’re even a little scared. Not for the kill, which you’re almost entirely sure you’ll make with little to no injury. For after.

You pull gently on your horns to stretch out your neck. Equius polished them for you last night. You’ve combed your hair, and even left your coat and hat at home. There’s no way you don’t look good.

After finding your pack, you put your shoes on. You strap your claws on. You run in place, then jump as high as you can a few times. You stick your tongue out at Aurthour, who is looking at you disapprovingly, probably thinking you’ll wake Equius. If only he knew!

You feel good and warmed up, your heart steady.

You leave the hive and bound down into the canyon.


	5. Kill

You hear your mom scream, distantly, and dismiss it. Mom's always hungry now, and you can barely keep up. Your clawbeds are drunk, the lines in your palms rainbow-stained. Whatever, Mom!

But the noise doesn't trail off into grumbles today. Instead it surges into piercing, discordant sound - You blink- and you’re suddenly running down the nearest passage and your footsteps pound nearly as loud as your heart. 

“Mom!” you scream.

She responds, but nothing you can understand, just with a noise as long and winding as her canyon.

The stairs fly under your feet, five and six at a time.

Your lusus is everything. The Condesce only knows how much you’ve sacrificed for her.

You burst out of your hive. There’s your mom, bellowing in front of you. Your mom staggers and then purposefully rams her body into the side of the canyon. She does this sometimes when birds perch on her in order to squish them. You see something scurrying along a rock ledge away from the impact. That something then turns around and sprints back towards your mom, taking a flying leap for her and landing square on her face.

It’s a troll. Its horns are bright against its black hair. It’s a troll you know.

“Nepeta?” you say, shocked enough to say it aloud.

Nepeta obviously does not hear you, or she might have reconsidered plunging both sets of her battleclaws into one of your mom’s eyes.

“NEPETA!” you scream.

Not even your dice are in your pocket, let alone your sword in your hand. You don’t know what you’re going to do. You have to do something. You jump off of the landing and start sliding down the rocky slope.

Your mom is moving erratically, trying to shake Nepeta off of her head, globs of eye and gobs of blood flying everywhere. Nepeta’s destroyed an eye by the time you run under all the cobwebs to your mom’s feet, which you immediately have to dive out of the way of. Mom’s not even aware you’re around.

“Stop!” you cry. You don’t know who you’re talking to. Blood is running in thick streams off of your mom’s head, splashing you.

You have to save her. You have to do something. You’re so stupid, you should’ve brought a weapon when you heard anything. Stupid!

Your mom stumbles to her front four knees. You take the opportunity to climb the closest leg, slippery from blood, jagged from hairs and spines, and grimly pull your way up.

Nepeta, like you, is having trouble clinging to your mom now that her thrashing is so violent. Most of her is sheltered in a cave in the eye jelly and it looks like she’s trying to dig further in.

“Stop!” you command, voice shaking, and dive for her.

You have to save her.

She whips around right as you slam into her. You both fall off of your mom and tumble down a steep portion of the canyon wall until you hit a swath of sticky web.

“You’re fucking lucky that didn’t kill us!” you yell. Long practice has you out of the web and on the ground in a few seconds. You don’t expect Nepeta to be nearly as quick as you, claws slicing through the web with neat flicks of her wrists.

You charge at her in an attempt to pin her down. She neatly sidesteps you and trips you so that you fall heavily. 

You flip onto your back and are about to kick yourself up when Nepeta says, “You don’t deserve this,” and bashes a rock into your head.

-

After knocking Vriska out, you drag her into a little alcove of rock so she won’t get hurt by her rampaging mom. You’ve been set back a little by her interference, but not by much. Her mom probably isn’t going to molt fresh that quickly (you have no idea how spiders work), and the blood loss she’s already experienced is surely slowing her down.

You’re tired, but you have to finish this before Vriska wakes back up. There’s rope in your pack; you take it out, tie it to one of your claw gloves, and then throw it upwards. It catches on your first try on a high outcrop.

After reaching that first jutting rock, you’re able to find enough cracks that you can just pull yourself up the cliff wall. Vriska’s mom has gotten to all her feet again and you need the extra height to make a good jump.

You actually land right on top of one of the fangs. You watch as a massive amount of venom ejects from the tip in reaction to your weight. The spider resumes its wild shaking. While it bashes its head into the canyon walls you take refuge in one of the eye sockets you previously tore at and begin tunnelling into its head.

Jelly and blood in equal measure gush out to surround you. In distinct pulses, more is squeezed out through the hole you’re making. You’re trying to go in beside the optic nerve, which is bigger than the thickest tree trunks you’ve seen, and its surrounding muscles. If you can drain enough fluid and reach the brain, then you can rest.

A particularly violent movement from the lusus flings you into the hole you’ve made and you’re inside the jelly of her head. You cut tendon and muscle and nerve desperately. The substances burn your eyes so you have to close them and don’t know how to tell which way is out.

While you can hold your breath for a good while—you’re an excellent runner—you’re about to pass out by the time you feel which way the liquid around you is moving and wriggle your way out of the spider’s head. You catch your breath with a squeak and try not to hyperventilate. You get bowled about a bit in the eye socket but the vast amounts of jelly and congealing blood cushion your impacts.

You take a few minutes to reasses your situation. You’ve got a long night ahead of you.

You end up puncturing all her eyes. You think it takes hours for enough fluid to drain from the head for you to crawl up an optic nerve and start destroying the brain. At that point the spider is quiet, perhaps resigned. There are no pain receptors in a brain.

Your claws are dull. You leave them pinned in the nerve you leave the brain by. You don’t plan on killing more anytime soon.

Fighting, though you anticipate some, comes sooner than you expect. During the shredding of her head, Vriska’s lusus collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the ravine walls. After sliding down a slick fang it’s a short jump down to some webbing and the ground and into Vriska’s fist.


	6. A Fight Scene I Wish I Made Longer, Alas

You wake slowly, mouth dry, head thrumming, legs still kicking out from sleep like always. You never feel rested, so this isn’t unusual. Uncurling your spine, you look around what could be barely called a cave, and wonder what you’re doing outside. Stray strands of your mom’s webbing drift across your blurry vision. Patting around yourself finds your glasses folded neatly beside where your head was resting. You put them on. The shift in vision hurts your head some more.

You get up and walk past the shelter of the rocks. You’re in your mom’s canyon. The moons (green and mean, winking pink) peer at you from behind thick stretches of webbing which are stirred by the nightly winds of cooled air. Air which brings the stench of blood to you.

You look for the ledge where you always check on Mom. There it is, across and above from you. Maybe she’s further in the canyon, mad at you, hungry. Everything hurts, mostly your head. You can’t remember why you’re out here, weaponless, in the middle of the night, the stink of blood everywhere. You have important shit to be doing, probably!

Maybe thirty strides reveal your life, transformed.

Your mom is slumped, eyeless, against the curve of the ravine wall. Her face is a mess of blue and black, blood and interstitial fluids and eye jelly. You remember tackling Nepeta off of your mom’s face, her hitting your head. You remember your mom’s cry for help. You remember not understanding it. It’s much too late now for understanding.

There’s some flicker on your mom’s face and you start, thinking she’s still alive, but it is a tall troll, doused head to toe in blue blood and black viscera. Nepeta.

She begins making her way down to the ground and you rush over despite the pounding in your head. Right as she lands you jump into the air and punch her in the face with your metal side as you descend like a meteor.

Nepeta is apparently so fucking built that she only staggers at your blow. “Why are you attacking me?” she says, and sounds hurt. This infuriates you.

“You killed my mom!” you yell. You widen your stance and twist for another punch but she deflects the blow with her forearm. She doesn’t even have her claws on. You can take her.

Bending your knees, you drop to your hands and kick your leg back in a sweep. Most other trolls, you think, would be felled, but Nepeta, instead of falling backward, steadies herself with a step back and then pounces forward. You scramble to your feet again, but you’re not fast enough to land a hit. She ducks under your fist and tackles your midsection.

You land heavily on your back and even after that slide back across the dirt for a couple of meters. Nepeta crouches over you, her eyes big, one starting to bruise from your punch, hair stiff with blood. You don’t like the way she’s looking at you, as if you’re prey. You want to punish her.

You jerk your robot palm up quick enough that Nepeta can’t dodge and get her nose. Her hands fly to her face but she still dodges the chop from your other hand by immediately stepping back from you on the first impact. You roll over a few times and grab her ankle with all your claws and try to wrench her down, but instead of losing her balance she steps over you and sits on your chest.

“Stop fighting,” she says, nose sounding stuffed.

“No! Bitch!” you say.

“You don’t have to fight,” she says.

You try to jab at her stomach but she grabs your fist. Her hand is wet from the blood from her face. Your arm trembles with the effort of pushing against her hand. Then it gives out, and she lets it go. You swing your metal hand up to try and bash her leg, but she has your wrist in a vice before you can connect. You don’t understand how this girl is so strong. Maybe she’s weight trained with your neighbor. She should be exhausted after killing—after what she did, but she holds you off with little sign of effort. You start trying to get up from underneath her, but she just settles her seat more firmly on your chest. 

“Listen to me,” Nepeta says. “You don’t have to fight ever again.”

“You don’t underSTAND,” you begin, but she slaps your face before you can continue.

“I said listen!” she says. “You don’t have to fight EVER again. No one is going to make you kill. No one is going to ask you to kill.”

“She didn’t have to ask,” you spit. “I wanted to! Everything I did I did for her!”

“So I killed her,” Nepeta says. She leans down and puts a hand on your face, gentle this time. “You couldn’t have done anything otherwise. I felt bad for you.”

You read pity in her eyes. Every breath drawn feels like fire—

“Get OFF of me,” you say. Nepeta killed with her bare hands, killed her mom with those hands, the hand on your face. There’s no way you’re getting out from under her unless she wants you to.

“No. I’m showing you that you don’t need to be the best. You just need to be better,” Nepeta says, showing every fang as if all their points would drive her own more directly into your thinkpan.

Your rage does not leave you. At the word “better” it instead erupts. You try to escape again, but Nepeta just pins your wrists down. You yell everything that comes to mind.

“You- you- if I wanted to I could have killed her myself! Nothing I did was wrong because she was right about everyone! She was the best, she protected me! She taught me how to live and how to kill and then you just murdered her! Fuck you! Now I have to be even better for her, or how am I supposed to best you?”

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to,” Nepeta says, letting go of you and doing that awful thing where she licks her hand and wipes it on her face, as if it made her any cleaner. Except it does, and patches of green and blue clear from from her face.

“I have to do everything for her,” you say, suddenly drained.

“No,” Nepeta says. She says it with assurance. “You don’t have an excuse now. She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”

You stop struggling, and exhale slowly.


	7. Nepeta Falls Asleep In A Shower

Sometime after you heave her over your shoulder and begin making your way back to her hive, Vriska starts crying and doesn’t stop. You’d suspect this would have more of an impact if you weren’t already completely covered by her lusus’s blood. You don’t know what to do, other than hold her legs tight to your chest and pet her back with your other hand. 

She’s very light. Equius always told you stress impacts appetite, encouraging you to eat even when you were worried about something. Vriska, growing up, would’ve always been worried about something. Worse than an orphan, to have a lusus that needed so much from you. She probably didn’t feed herself as well as she fed her mom.

You walk for a while, listening to her sob. It goes in waves. She’ll sound like she’s gotten control of herself, and then another wail will burst from her and you feel her breath hitching in her chest again. There’s a little needle of guilt pricking at you, but you know you did the right thing. She might get a chance to be normal. That’s what she wanted.

You think the ledge you see above you now is the lowest entrance to Vriska’s hive, without trecking all the way out of the canyon and hiking up the whole hillside proper. After a little pause, you gently slide Vriska off of your shoulder and set her down in the dirt. Her face is murky with blue. Her breath is unsteady. You must have crushed her glasses at some point—they’re cracked. Under the lenses, Vriska’s eye is closed tight.

“Vriska,” you say, and she opens her eye. You’re not sure if the color is starting to come in or its just a film of tears. “We need to get back up to your hive before dawn, but I can’t carry you like I was before and climb at the same time. Can you hold on to me?”

She sniffs. There’s a lot of snot involved. “You think I’m not strong enough?” she says thickly. “I can hang on just fine. I can climb myself, you know.”

“You can’t,” you say, not going to humor her. “But that’s okay, because I’m here.”

You squat and wait. After a minute or two, Vriska climbs on your back. It’s your reflexes that save you when you feel pressure on your neck and you throw her over your head in reaction.

“Aren’t you tired of being beaten?” you ask her. “Try all you want, you can’t claw my throat out. You don’t need to fight.”

Vriska lays there, limbs all stretched outward like a star, eye closed, hair over her face. Her chest rises and falls erratically. She’s probably crying again.

You wait. The sun is going to come join the moons soon, but there are plenty of little caves you can drag Vriska to if need be. You’d just rather get her to coon if you can.

“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m ok?” she says, opening her eye to pin you with it.

Though you don’t mean to, you laugh. “Why would I ask such a stupid question?” you say.

“I was beginning to get the impression you cared,” she says, finally getting up.

You tilt your head. “I only went and killed your mom for you,” you say, baffled. “You’d be greedy to ask for more!”

She motions at you, and you crouch again. She wraps her arms around your neck and her legs around your midsection.

“If you don’t know about my greed than you don’t know me at all, kitty.”

You jump a little bit to heft her up on your back.

“So I’ll learn,” you say, and start climbing.

-

Vriska tries to slide off of you when you reach the staircase to the lived-in part of her hive, but you wrap your arms under her legs instead and continue upward.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” she says. Her tone has regained some of its usual nastiness.

“Too bad,” you say, and heft her up again.

It’s a lot of stairs. Vriska you think is asleep when you emerge into her hive proper, arms dangling from your shoulders. There are even more stairs to get her to her respiteblock.

As you prepare to dump her into her recuperacoon, she wakes and grumbles, “At least take my clothes off first.”

You blush.

“Kill my mom and put me to bed, but you can’t handle some nakedness?” she jeers, shedding her jacket.

You shove her against her recuperacoon and get your hands under her shirt. She jerks at your touch.

“Hah,” you say, and take the shirt off.

“All right, you win, again,” she says, shucking her shoes and socks, pants, and, with some hesitation, her underwear. Once she’s done, you lift her easily and dunk her into the slime.

“Take a shower, you’re disgusting,” she says when she emerges again. The sopor is already affecting her. You look for the painkiller dial on the recuperacoon’s back in order to turn it up, but find it’s already tuned to the maximum dosage. You bite your lip.

“Sure,” you say, but Vriska’s asleep.

You wander into her ablution chamber and almost slip on a pile of blood-stiff bandages on the floor. There’s a bunch of bottles scattered across the sink, and you pick some up to read their labels. Bluebloods up get access to anxiety medications, which some of these are, and there’s a lot of painkillers too, which are available even down to rust. There’s some more drugs you don’t recognize. You put the bottles back down.

Not bothering to undress, you step into the trap. The water is freezing when you switch on the water flow, and it only gets colder.

-

“You’re wasting water,” Vriska says, shutting the shower off. You startle and bring your fists up in front of your face, but she’s not attacking you. She sits on the edge of the trap and just watches you.

You scrub your face with your knuckles. You don’t know how long you’ve been lying under the spray of frigid water. There’s still blue running at the bottom of the trap, probably from your clothes. Your hands come away from your face clean. All your muscles ache.

“I’ll leave,” you say, but Vriska snorts.

“What, you’re already sick of me?”

“No,” you say, and put your head back down. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

Vriska rolls her eye and leaves the ablution chamber.

All you want to do is go back to sleep, but you don’t doubt that Vriska would leave you to die of hypothermia in her shower. Even now.

You take all your clothes off and turn the water back on. The cold motivates you to scrub and rinse quickly. You leave the water on to soak your clothes, and getting out of the trap bump into Vriska carrying a towel.

“Cat’s don’t want to stay wet, right?” she says, wrapping you in it.

“Depends on the cat,” you say, towelling your hair and rubbing at your horns.

“Meow,” Vriska says, and leaves again.

Once you’re mostly dry, you tie the towel above your rumblespheres and get to squeezing all the water out of your clothes. The black shirt and pants will probably be permanantly stained blue. You’re just going to throw the underwear away.

While you’re throwing your clothes over the curtain rod to dry, Vriska barges in again and says, “Hey, what’s with all these chores? I made food for you and you’re just going to waste it? Geeeeeeeez, and everyone says I never do anything nice for people!”

You just sit down on the load gaper, because you are extremely tired. Vriska huffs and leaves. You close your eyes.

Vriska stomps back in a short while later, carrying plates of food in what looks like a delivery box cut up to serve as a tray. She sets it down on the sink, sticks her face into yours, says, “I slaaaaaaaaved over this, so you better eat something,” and stomps back out after grabbing your clothes. There’s some grubloaf, messily buttered, perfectly peeled and dissected drupes, an unevenly heated bowl of soup, and what looks like a partially exploded meat pie. You are not surprised Vriska Serket is better with a knife than a microwave. You tuck in.

-

“How long was I asleep?” Nepeta asks. She’s perched herself on your desk, in her clothes you just pulled out of the dryer. You slipped a pair of your boxers in with them, and she dressed herself in them with no comment.

“All day,” you say. “It’s dusk now.”

“Oh,” she says.

“I looked in on you!” you say, buttering your grubloaf so fiercely that crumbs fly everywhere and some of the crust peels off. “I thought maybe you’d wake up on your own.”

“You were up in the day?” she asks.

“I never sleep long,” you say.

“I can send you some herbs to put in your sopurr,” Nepeta says, launching herself off the desk.

You frown. “Don’t leave,” you say.

Nepeta smiles. “I’m not making you my whole life. You can stand on your own, you know. I did the hard part for you anyway.”

“You didn’t do me a favor. I just failed to protect her.” You hesitate. “For her, I’ll find you no matter where you go now; I’ll chase you down every path.”

“Oh noooooooo,” Nepeta says, standing closer, and you can hear her stealing YOUR thing in her voice. “What a tragedy. An eternal hunt!” she says with delighted sarcasm. She laughs, and then leans down and kisses you.


	8. The Walk Hive

Vriska insists on walking you down the path outside her hive to the bottom of the cliff and you feel things: surprised, touched, suspicious, annoyed. You have to keep disguising your limp and make sure your shoulders are straight even though all you want to do is just sit and cry for a while. You barely notice Vriska saying goodbye until she tucks your hair behind your ear and accidentally nicks you with a claw. The sting brings your eyes to hers.

“Safe journey back,” she says.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” you say, and she spits at your feet before turning and heading back hive.

Once she’s out of sight, you heave your breath into a sigh and throw your exhale and yourself onto the ground. Your legs were shaking, and even on your ass your knees are still fluttering up and down.

You felt okay, initially! It was probably adrenochrome that carried you through the fighting and dragging Vriska up to her hive. Then you numbed out in the shower. It was only after you ate Vriska’s offering that you began to feel as if Equius had given you a massage with his fists instead of his fingertips. You’ve always said an ache of the limb could never compare to an ache of the heart, but you’re very ready to revise your opinion on this.

You sit there a while, then start waking hive. Though trees are sparse on the foothills, you manage to find a felled branch to use as a crutch and make decent time through the scrub and shrubs. Vriska defrosted you a bunch of microwavable food to carry in a spare backpack, so you stop a few times to eat, teeth crunching through the grubshell packaging instead of finding a good eating stick to scoop the food out (she forgot to pack you a fork). You’re happy for the extra rations. There’s enough that you won’t have to hunt for a few days once you get back home and the opportunity to rest will probably be good for you.

Usually it takes you half a night to travel back to your cave from Equius’s hive. Tonight you find yourself sheltering in the trunk of a burnt out walnut as the sky lightens enough for you to realize you’re not going to make it before dawn. You crack scattered nut shells with your teeth and eat the meat as you watch the sunrise over the grassland. When the sun is just peeking over the horizon, its light is weak, and it’s hard to believe this is what blinded Terezi. You know better, though, so you cover yourself in duff and bramble, and go to sleep.

Waking is excruciating—daymares are a comfort compared to the pain your body is in right now. You open the bag Vriska gave you. At the bottom are a few bottles of painkillers you stole from her bathroom. You carefully read the label and take exactly the recommended olive dose.

You lie in the base of the tree, watching what you can of the skies out of the trunk hollowed by fire, sky darkening, stars emerging to wink at you. Maybe an hour passes. You feel a little floaty; that’s probably the drugs? Experimentally, you stretch your arms above your head. The ache is there, but faded.

You pull your pack on, you pick up your crutch. You hobble away.

When you get back to your home, it’s late again, sky peach. The painkillers you’ve pissed out by now, and you can’t help but groan making your way through the tight passage into the cave. Mom bounds up to you as you throw down your pack and collapse on the floor. She’s purring from worry, and starts breadmaking on your side, which pulls a yelp from you. She frowns with both mouths.

“I’m fine, Mom,” you say. She makes a small lilting noise, probably because you’re barely able to get the words out. “Really,” you say, and you even stand and stagger to a pelt to lie down on something more comfortable.

You ought to get your tablet and message Equius and Vriska and Terezi, but your mom lies down on top of you, purring. Now you’re warm, safe, and … asleep.


	9. Some Conversations

When you wake up, all your limbs feel heavy and stretched. You try to move and lightning arcs through you. Mom snaps her head up at your cry.

“I’m ok, I’m ok,” you say, trying to convince yourself. You fight through the stabbing ache and sit up after shoving your lusus off of your chest. Instead of scolding you she wraps around your back and rubs her head on your face, your tears rolling into her fur.

“I’m ok,” you say.

It takes you some minutes to stand, locate your tablet, and start Trollian. You open a chat with Equius, then tab over to open one with Terezi, and after a little hesitation, one with Vriska.

Your greetings don’t get through. The wireless is always shaky. Terezi is the one who set it up in the first place, splicing a long-distance transmitter grub into the network mycelium of the nearest lawnring.

Equius would probably know you’re ok even if you don’t message him. Terezi doesn’t know what you did, and Equius wouldn’t tell her, so she wouldn’t be worried until you went a few more nights without contacting her. Vriska—for one, you don’t trust her at all. More importantly, if you kill someone’s lusus, you’re responsible! You obviously didn't cull her. So you have to make sure she’s ok.

Mom doesn’t want you to leave because of your poor condition, but you insist. Terezi’s tree isn’t more than a night’s walk, and you’ll be able to use her husktop and its stable internet connection. You take some painkillers and put a spare bottle in your coat pocket for later.

Unlike your trip to Equius’s hive, your walk to Terezi’s is not solitary. Your mom, rarely overbearing, stretches her body in front of your feet to slow you down, starts grooming your hair so you have to stop and throw her off your back, headbutts the back of your knees so you stumble. At one point she even tries to drag you by the coat back home, but you blow up.

“I’m basically an adult!” you yell at her, ripping your coat out of her teeth. “You can’t protect me when I’m conscripted! What will you do when I’m in space? Back OFF, Mom!”

Mom backs off. You start crying.

When Terezi pulls you up into the hive, you’re barely able to breathe from sobbing so hard, choking on phlegm.

“I have to check on Vriska,” you stutter out. “I’d die if someone killed my mom.”

Terezi blinks. “Did you kill Vriska’s mom?” She answers herself immediately. “Of course you did, you little monster.” You’re like twice her size. “Here, let me get my husktop. Wow! How long ago was this?”

Instead of responding you start howling with grief. You roll amongst Terezi’s scalemates and law texts and tabletop RPG notes and wrinkle all the papers and squish the stuffed animals. Trying to wipe your face just opens scabs which then burn from your tears.

“Terezi!” you wail. “I killed her MOM!”

Terezi comes back to you and kisses your horn. “I’ve gathered, my sweet moon.” She holds her portable husktop out to you, then takes it back before you can drip tears on the keyboard. “Maybe calm down a bit more first. I’m going to find some bandages for you, those cuts look awful.”

Though you’ve cleaned up by the time you send a message, your distress is still that you accidentally send what’s meant for Equius to Aradia.

AC: you’ll have seen by now, diamond  
AA: see what?  
AA: what did you do?  
AA: besides message me instead of equius i mean  
AC: oh, sorry! i’m still furry tired  
AC: uuum )):  
AC: i should have done it sooner. she was hurting everybody. it’s purrsible i could have prevented a lot of harm )):  
AA: there’s only ever one she, isn’t there  
AA: you didn’t kill her though  
AA: i’d probably know  
AC: i killed her lusus  
AC: she didn’t have to be the way she did. it was only ever her mom  
AA: that’s not true  
AA: but maybe you can’t see it like i do  
AA: and  
AA: maybe i can’t see it like you do  
AA: because she’s clearly special to you  
AA: bluebloods, huh?  
AC: uuum yeah. equius thinks it’s furry embarrassing but i don’t mean to be impurroper!  
AC: i just think no one needs to be the strongest or smartest or best  
AC: but they don’t know that unless i tell them  
AA: i don’t think you have to feel bad about anything you could have prevented  
AA: it wasn’t you  
AA: it was her  
AA: and you might not have been strong enough then  
AA: well  
AA: i guess i wish you every fang bared between you  
AA: or should I say every bone?  
AC: i don’t know if that’s even the right choice

While you were talking with Aradia, Equius was messaging you.

CT: Nepeta are you all right?  
CT: It was an e%ceptional scene you left  
CT: And Vriska has been quiet  
CT: Which is unusual to say the least  
CT: Especially under the circumstances  
CT: I did not e%pect your courtship to be so ostentatious  
CT: Considering how we-  
CT: Well, you know how I treasure our first meeting  
CT: Which is easier now to say  
CT: A%epting that we were young and f00lish  
CT: It would beh00f you to answer if you are able, Nepeta  
CT: I know you are STRONG and capable  
CT: But you don’t have to shoulder any burden alone  
AC: hee hee is burden a musclebeast pun?  
CT: Not a pun exactly  
CT: Just a reference  
CT: I am relieved to hear from you  
AC: sorry, i accidentally contacted someone else when i tried to talk to you just now  
AC: i’m at terezi’s hive because the wireless at my cave was down )):  
AC: so that’s why it took me longer than i meant to let you know that  
AC: i’m ok  
CT: I am glad to hear that  
CT: The physical damage to the lusus was extensive and I was afraid she returned it in kind  
AC: no, it was fine except for the fight i had with vriskers!  
AC: and that was fine too, she’s shit  
CT: Language  
CT: Though I agree  
CT: Her physical prowess, or lack thereof, was always obscured by the gear in that...game  
CT: You ought to know I cannot condone this  
CT: But despite that, as I have four limbs I have four points to call you home  
AC: and i four sides to keep you  
AC: <>  
CT: <>

“Ah, young love,” Terezi says.

“This is private!” you yelp.

“This is my property!” Terezi says, and then sticks her tongue out at you. “Are you going to tell me what happened or what?”

A message from Vriska pops up.

“In a second,” you say, nervous, and click on the window.


End file.
